TV

How Accurate is HBO's Chernobyl? Experts Weigh In

Chernobyl has been a critical success on HBO, we spoke to experts in the nuclear industry about how accurate the show actually was.

How TV Transformed the News in 1968

In 1968 violent events at home and aboard were broadcast in color on the television news, creating impacts that may have swayed the presidential election.

A conservative activist's quest to preserve all network news broadcasts

by Thomas Alan Schwartz

It was 50 years ago that he got Vanderbilt to start recording the evening network newscasts.

The Historical Becomes Personal

Simon Schama on the making of ‘The Story of the Jews.’

The Politics and Popularity of "Downton Abbey"

by Gregory Kosc and Kallie Kosc

The real reasons why Americans can’t get enough of the hit TV show.

BBC reveals 2,500-hour World War I season

The BBC has revealed how it plans to mark the centenary of World War I.

Nixon slams "All in the Family," ancient Roman rulers for being gay in White House tape

An audio recording of former U.S. President Richard Nixon spouting off an anti-gay rant has surfaced.CNN published an excerpt from the tape, which was apparently recorded sometime during Nixon's time in the Oval Office from 1969-1974. In the clip, Nixon accuses the popular TV series "All in the Family" (which he initially mistakes for a movie) of "glorifying homosexuality,""The point that I make is that...I do not think that you glorify, on public television, homosexuality," Nixon proclaims. And the president doesn't stop there -- claiming that homosexuality "destroyed the Greeks," he notes, "Aristotle was a homo, we all know that. So was Socrates ... Homosexuality, immorality in general...these are the enemies of strong societies."...

Library of Congress races to preserve TV history

(CBS News) CULPEPER, Va. -- There are moments that define America, and the record of many of them are stored in a vault in Culpeper, Va.But these videotapes, some 50 years old, are deteriorating, and there is a race to preserve the history they contain."I think an important thing is to capture people's memories, to take people back to the day when they first saw Carol Burnett tug on her ear, or the day when Walter Cronkite couldn't hardly finish his sentence in November 1963, when Kennedy was shot," says Rob Stone, the Moving Image Curator of the Library of Congress....

New JFK docudrama suggests Secret Service agent killed Kennedy

"JFK: The Smoking Gun" is based on the work of retired Australian police Detective Colin McLaren and the book "Mortal Error: The Shot that Killed JFK" by Bonar Menninger.

Derek Waters Explains His TV Series ‘Drunk History’

For an inebriated storyteller, enthusiasm often outpaces execution. “They have to get it out, no matter how many times they mess it up,” said Derek Waters, a creator of “Drunk History,” beginning Tuesday on Comedy Central.He would know. Since 2007, this actor (“Suburgatory,” “Married to the Kellys”) and writer has asked friends to throw back a few, then tell him their favorite historical tale as a camera rolls. The resulting videos, hits on Funny or Die, pair the sloppy narratives with self-serious re-enactments — including the drunken flubs and profanity — by famous actors. “The tone is, these are guys who are trying as hard as they can to make a history show, but it’s just not going that well,” Mr. Waters said.

Edward Hotaling, 75, TV reporter who shed light on black history, is dead

Edward Hotaling, a television reporter whose question about racial progress ended the career of the CBS sports commentator Jimmy (the Greek) Snyder in 1988, but who may have made a more lasting mark by documenting the use of slave labor in building the nation’s Capitol, died on June 3 on Staten Island. He was 75.The cause was a heart attack, his son Greg said. He had lived in a nursing home since suffering serious injuries in an auto accident in 2007.Mr. Hotaling (pronounced HO-tail-ing) was a television reporter at the NBC affiliate WRC-TV in Washington when he interviewed Mr. Snyder on Jan. 15, 1988, for a report commemorating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. Bumping into Mr. Snyder in a restaurant, Mr. Hotaling asked him to assess racial progress in professional sports.Mr. Snyder’s reply careered into his theory that blacks were better athletes than whites because their slave ancestors had been “bred to be that way” and that soon “there’s not going to be anything left for the white people” in sports. The comment created a national stir and got him fired by CBS. He died in 1996....

Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner: The Toxic Politics of Science [Interview w/ Bill Moyers]

[CLICK ON LINK FOR INTERVIEW]

Is the Press Too Big to Fail?

by Todd Gitlin

Image via Shutterstock.Originally posted on TomDispatch.com